


Letter Perfect; or, The Letter Under Zebby's Pillow

by Findswoman



Series: The Lasan Series [2]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: F/M, Family, Humor, Lasan, Lasat, Love Letters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 03:02:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14275512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Findswoman/pseuds/Findswoman
Summary: Zeb’s little brother has been reading his private correspondence, and chaos ensues... Once again, the character of Shai Orrelios is borrowed with gratitude from Raissa Baiard, as is Zeb and Shai's mother, Herleva Orrelios.





	Letter Perfect; or, The Letter Under Zebby's Pillow

Zeb slung his duffel down in the front hall of his family home. No one seemed to be there. Well, Pa was still going to be at work at this hour, Ma had probably just gone out for a bit, and Priska was still deployed up north at Honor Guard Station Yabsh (and of course Zefora and Signi had had their own places for a while now). But Zeb thought that at least Shai would be there to greet him as he came home from the Royal Lasat Military Academy for spring holiday leave. He looked around and listened.  
  
Then he heard it: laughter. Youthful laughter. Exuberant youthful laughter over something unbearably hilarious.  
  
Shai’s laughter.  
  
As quickly as he could Zeb stomped upstairs to the room he shared with his kit brother. The door was closed, but the laughter continued to filter from behind it. Zeb knocked.  
  
“Shai? That you?”  
  
The door swung open to reveal a tousle-headed teenage kit with a broad, mischievous grin on his face. “Oh, hi, Zebby,” he said. “Or, wait, maybe I should say”—and here he threw his arms around Zeb in an exaggerated hug—“O dearest, sweetest Garazeb!”  
  
Zeb pulled free and fixed his brother with a quizzical scowl. This sounded suspicious. “What the actual Bogan are you talking about, Shai?!”  
  
“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know, _my mighty bristlecone!_ ” Again he threw his arms around his brother and continued in a high-pitched, singsong voice. “Oh, let me rest my head on your broad shoulder! Let me melt into your rugged embrace! Let me feel your beard brush my face as I press my lips to yours! _Mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah!_ ”  
  
“Aw karabast…” Horror paled Zeb’s face as he pulled free again. He recognized those words from Shulma’s most recent letter to him. It was now only too obvious what had happened. “How’d you—where’d you—”  
  
“I have it right _he-ere!_ ” Shai pulled a folded piece of light pink deckled flimsi from his inner jacket pocket and waved it teasingly in his brother’s face.  
  
“Give that back! NOW!”  
  
Zeb tried to snatch the flimsi back, but Shai quickly pocketed it again. “Nope, gotta catch me!” he taunted, and took off down the hall, giggling mischievously.  
  
“GET BACK HERE, Y’LITTLE—!” Zeb shouted as he chased his little brother down the hallway, down another hallway, down the stairs, through the parlor, zigzagging perilously around the furniture. Zeb almost grabbed Shai as the kit ran into a footstool and knocked it over, but Shai jumped out of the way just in time. The kit made a mad dash for the front hall—and at the exact moment that his older brother faceplanted over the fallen stool, he slammed headlong into the figure that had just entered the front door.  
  
Their mother. The one, the only Herleva Orrelios, retired captain of the Lasan High Honor Guard, matriarch _par excellence,_ fierce protector of her family, force of nature.  
  
“WHAT DO YOU BOYS THINK YOU’RE DOING?!” bellowed the voice that had once struck fear into a generation of Guards.  
  
Her two sons thrust simultaneous, accusatory fingers at each other. “ _He_ started it!”  
  
“Okay, you two. You can let go now, Garashai.” She pried her younger son from her person, then nudged his older brother with her foot. “Garazeb, get _off_ the floor. You look ridiculous. And watch your language!” she added in response to her older son’s muttered “karabast” as he pulled himself up, massaging his cheeks and nose. “Now someone tell me what’s going on here.”  
  
Zeb spoke first. “He stole a letter from my—from—from me. And he needs to give it back.”  
  
“I didn’t steal it! I was just makin’ the beds up in the room and it—it just—slipped out from under Zebby’s pillow!”  
  
“YEAH, SURE IT DID!”  
  
“No, really, I swear!”  
  
Herleva raised one brow ridge inquiringly. “Letter, eh?”  
  
“Yeah,” came Shai’s reply.  
  
“Under his _pillow?_ ”  
  
“Um, yeah.”  
  
She extended her hand. “Give it here, Shai.”  
  
Shai began to reach into this pocket, but Zeb gave a sigh of exasperation. “Aw kara—aw, Ma! Really?”  
  
“Yes, really. I want to see the letter that _slipped out from under Zebby’s pillow._ ”  
  
Shai stuck his tongue out at his fuming brother, then handed the pink deckled flimsi to his mother. She took it and begin to read. At first her eyes widened, and she drew in a sharp breath of astonishment, but gradually her features softened into one of her elusive smiles.  
  
“Mmm, that’s heady stuff.” She winked at Zeb, whose face had turned a deeper shade of purple, and gave him a thump on the back. “‘Dearest, sweetest Garazeb,’ eh?”  
  
Zeb buried his face in one hand and sighed. “Ma, c’mon, please…”  
  
“And you’re her ‘mighty bristlecone,’ are you?” She thumped Zeb again, whose face remained buried in his hand. “She’s got it bad for my boy, that’s for sure!”  
  
“ _Ma…_ ”  
  
“Awww,” Shai chimed in in a teasing singsong. “Just lookit the mighty warrior of the High Honor Guard getting all blushy over a _gi-irl!_ ”  
  
“SHUT IT, SHAI!”  
  
Herleva simply shrugged. “Hey, it happens. Now come here.” She gestured to them commandingly. “I want to show you boys something.”  
  
The boys had no choice but to follow her through the parlor, dining room, and kitchen to their father’s study, a small, cluttered office alcove at the back of the house. For several moments she rummaged through the pigeonholes of the huge, crammed rolltop desk that stood there. Finally she pulled out a yellowing sheet of noteflimsi, printed with a pattern of bright pink mazna flowers and covered with florid, exaggerated adolescent handwriting. “Ah, here it is.” She cleared her throat and read aloud:  
  
“‘Nerezeb! Darling! It was so sweet of you to take me out to Teepp’s Teahouse last week! And I loved our walk on the lakeshore afterward! The salt spray, the waves… and all those watergulls flying around… weren’t they so beautiful? It’s like they were there just for us! I just wish they hadn’t messed on your head during our kiss!’”  
  
“Aw, Ma, EEEEWWWW!”  
  
“Shai, let ’er finish.”  
  
Herleva simply continued. “‘But otherwise, it was SO SWEET and I really hope we can do it again! (Kiss, I mean, not get messed on by watergulls.)’” Shai rolled his eyes and tutted, but Herleva once again ignored him. “‘Let me know as soon as you can when we can go out again, because I miss you SO MUCH! All my love and kisses, Leva.’” She folded the letter again and looked at her sons. “Now what do you boys think of _that?_ ”  
  
Zeb bit his lip and glanced over at Shai, whose attention seemed to have been suddenly captured by a random spot on the floor. It was profoundly odd for him to imagine their mother—the formidable military commander turned equally formidable matriarch—as a lovestruck young girl known as “Leva,” going all mushy over memories of lakeshore walks and kisses. And yet, if he was to believe what he’d just heard, that is exactly what she _had_ been those many years ago. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.  
  
“It’s… really… something,” he managed at last.  
  
“Erm… yeah,” added Shai in a barely audible voice, his eyes still down at the floor.  
  
“Here, you two.” Herleva put her arms around both her boys’ shoulders and led them gently over to the settee in the parlor, where she motioned to them to sit on either side of her. “Let me tell you some things. First you, Garashai.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “All this blushy-mushy stuff you’ve been giving your brother such a hard time about? Guess what. It happens to everyone. One hundred percent of beings on Lasan. Me, your father, your brother, and someday you too, just you watch. The time will come when you’ll get all doe-eyed over sappy love notes, too.”  
  
“Yeah, sure, Ma,” muttered Shai, turning away.  
  
“Oh, just wait and see! And you’ll just have to hope Garazeb doesn’t find any of yours, heh heh!” She ruffled his hair playfully; he smoothed it back out with a grumble. Then she turned to her older son.  
  
“And you, Garazeb. Don’t feel so embarrassed, for the Ashla’s sake! For one thing, your girl’s a much better writer than I was.” She laughed, then put a reassuring arm around Zeb. “But for another thing… your feelings are nothing to be ashamed of. Remember what it says in the story of Rolmvar the Rugged and Radiant Lalma?”  
  
Zeb nodded as he recalled the familiar fairy tale. “‘The strongest warrior has the tenderest heart’?”  
  
Herleva smiled. “That’s right. Could have been written about my boy, as far as I’m concerned. Now, I bet you’ll want this back.”  
  
She handed him the pink deckled letter. He immediately and carefully smoothed it out; it had gotten just a touch wrinkled in the tussle with Shai (but fortunately not torn, because if it had been, there would be _consequences_ ). Then he slid it into the breast pocket of his uniform vest.  
  
“And just as a friendly tip,” his mother added, “you might want to find another place to keep this. Somewhere out of reach of prying kit brothers.”  
  
Zeb smiled. His face still felt a bit warm—but hey, that happened sometimes, right? “Thanks, Ma.”  


* * *

  
Indeed, after spring holiday leave ended and he returned to the Military Academy, Zeb placed Shulma’s letter very carefully into an empty compartment at the top of his gear locker, right beside the compartment with his bracers and shoulder armor. Every morning, as he came to his locker to suit up, Zeb would run the pads of his fingers over the soft, linenlike surface of the flimsi. Whenever he did, he would stop and reflect for a bit—not only on the sweet words of the one who had sent the letter, but also on the tenderness of his own warrior’s heart. ¶

**Author's Note:**

> Nerezeb (Zeb and Shai’s father) and Priska, Zefora, and Signi (Zeb and Shai’s older sisters) are also the creations of Raissa Baiard and were introduced in [The Beginning of Honor](http://boards.theforce.net/threads/the-beginning-of-honor-rebels-zeb-backstory-part-four-10-10-17.50045958/). Once again, many thanks to her for letting me bring them in.
> 
> Honor Guard Station Yabsh: Per the Lasat fanon post by Raissa and myself, the saltwater Lake Yabsh is Lasan’s largest single body of water. My thought is that this base is located on or near its northernmost shore, almost directly opposite the capital city of Lira Zel.
> 
> Teepp’s Teahouse: Fanon, named (not very cleverly) after the San Francisco-based Peet’s Coffee, whose frappé-type drinks I used to enjoy quite a bit in my California days.
> 
> Rolmvar the Rugged and Radiant Lalma: Fanon.
> 
> Finally, one more thank-you to Raissa: once again for letting me borrow the delightful Shai and the redoubtable Herleva, and for helping me when I was stuck on Herleva’s motherly advice to her boys. Herleva’s dialogue at that point in the story basically follows Raissa’s suggestions exactly. :)


End file.
